Juxtaposition
by Gilded Lily
Summary: 24 hours in the life of Astrid Farnsworth. Written for GreyCardamon in Yuletide 2009.


Juxtaposition

Astrid Farnsworth woke up with a song stuck in her head.

That wasn't surprising. She loved music. Her CD collection was the third largest collection she owned. (Her computers and her books concerning cryptology being the first and second, respectively) What was surprising was her inability to recognize the song itself. She wondered if she'd heard it on the radio and forgotten about it until her subconscious kicked it back up last night. Perhaps she'd heard it in the lab; God knew that Walter played enough old records in the course of an average day.

She had no idea, but the issue didn't bother her too long. At least the mystery tune was a pleasant one. It stayed with her all morning, following her into the shower and lingering over breakfast. She was still humming it as she walked into the Harvard lab that served as unofficial "home base" for Fringe Division.

"Sounds familiar," Peter Bishop said as he brushed past her on the stairs. He held a clear container filled with what Astrid only hoped was lime Jello. He was out the door before she could ask.

Olivia Dunham nodded. "I think I've heard it somewhere before," she agreed. She looked up from her case file, a thoughtful look on her face. "I just can't seem to place it..."

"Me neither," said Astrid.

Out of the corner of her eye, Astrid saw Walter start- a slight twitch of the shoulders. By now, that little gesture was more than enough to raise suspicion in her mind. She turned her full attention on him. He didn't look up from what he was doing. He didn't have to. Slowly, imperceptible to anyone not watching him closely, the corners of his mouth turned up.

"Uh huh," said Astrid to herself as she hung up her jacket.

Olivia's cellphone rang. She stepped into the office to take the call.

Peter came back in. The container in his hands was empty. "If that creature does anything to the pipes," he said in Walter's direction, "you're getting the repair bill."

Astrid stared at the empty container in disbelief - that thing was a creature?!

"I doubt the pipes in this building live up to its standards," Walter snapped. "It's very discerning."

"My mistake," retorted Peter dryly.

Olivia walked out of the office. "That was Broyles," she told Peter. "He needs to see you and me. Immediately."

"And the fun begins already."

Despite his initial complaints, Peter was out of the door before Olivia. Astrid shook her head. She didn't know which was closer to the real Peter Bishop: dedicated Peter or indifferent Peter. She preferred dedicated Peter; he was easier to get along with. But she sometimes secretly missed indifferent Peter's "devil-may-care" approach. It seemed he'd gone from one extreme to

another, but perhaps that was just a Bishop family trait.

Thinking of one Bishop male brought her thoughts back to her earlier suspicions. The week previous, Walter had been obsessed with the topic of music and possible subliminal messages contained therein. (More than one record was ruined by being played backwards) Now all three of the people he worked with were sporting the mother and father of all earworms. (a.k.a a song that sticks in the mind no matter what someone does to get rid of it) It could be a coincidence - if not for the fact that Astrid learned in her first six months working with him that if Walter Bishop was involved, it probably was not a coincidence.

"It's pretty strange, huh," she said in a leading tone. She sat down at her desk and booted up her work computer. "Peter, Olivia, and me humming that song and not knowing what it is. All on the same day."

He still didn't look at her. Astrid checked off another item in her mental list of suspicion.

"Not particularly, given both the individuals involved and the considerable untapped potential of the human brain.." Walter began.

He was deflecting, which with Walter was all but an admission of culpability. He did it. The real question was, did he do it on purpose? It seemed equally likely that he had accidentally or purposely given his fellow co-workers the fringe science version of the worst earworm ever.

At least she hoped it was an earworm instead of an actual worm. Astrid tried to ignore that thought as she got to work.

***

Astrid clicked off on her work e-mail. Her rumbling stomach demanded attention. She pushed back from her computer.

"I'm going to grab lunch," she called over her shoulder to her co-workers. "Do you want anything?"

"No thanks," Peter said from behind the gurney. "I think I lost my appetite somewhere in the upper gastrointestinal system." He looked down at the mangled body in front of him, as if that explained it all. The remains were fairly disgusting, even by Fringe Division's standards. Astrid thanked God daily that over a year's worth of working with Walter had given her such a strong stomach.

"Pastrami would be lovely," said Walter, his eyes never straying from the improbable strand of viscera winding around his fingers. Astrid was no biologist, but she was fairly certain nothing healthy in the human body should be that particular shade of green. "With sweet relish," he added, as if the

thought just occurred to him.

He went back to his work without another word. Peter let an exasperated huff as Walter once again ignored little things like the social niceties or money.

"My wallet's in my jacket," Peter told her. Astrid shook her head.

"I'll just put it all on our tab," she couldn't help but tease Peter. The man who owned the diner was a notorious hard-ass when it came to money. He refused to keep a tab for anyone but Astrid. The whys and wherefores of their arrangement was a great mystery to everyone but he and Astrid. She knew that Peter had his theories, and she also knew that none of them came close to the

truth. After all, he'd never guess that the hard-bitten diner proprietor was also a serious computer nerd. Parts and repairs paid for a lot of pastrami.

Astrid gathered up her jacket. She made certain that her cellphone was in one of the pockets before she slipped it on. "Be back in a few," she said.

She stepped out from the dimness of the lab into the relative brightness of a brisk November day. There was definitely more bite in the air than there'd been even yesterday. Winter was coming whether anyone wanted it or not. Astrid pulled her jacket tighter around herself.

The small diner favored by university students and the Fringe Division alike was a quick walk across main campus. On most days, Astrid enjoyed watching the student body moving around her. It wasn't all that long ago that she'd been one of them, hurrying like her life depended on getting where she was going as quickly as possible. Sometimes she even played a game with herself - Spot The Linguistics Majors. That was usually pretty easy for her. She looked for the closest collegiate muttering under their breath in a language that wasn't English; the game was automatically over if they were conjugating in more than one language.

Astrid wasn't in the mood today. She was too hungry for retrospection. She picked up her pace. In the short time it took her to get to the dinner and back, Peter and Olivia had been called out again. Walter had forgotten he'd asked for a pastrami sandwich. His level of preoccupation with the body on the table must have been intense. Usually he remembered food even if he'd forgotten everything else in the room.

"You'll probably remember it later," Astrid said. "I'm putting it in the refrigerator."

Astrid opened the refrigerator door. Her nose wrinkled in disgust. She had no idea what that funny smell was. She didn't think she wanted to know, either. Forcing herself to ignore it, she made a quick scan of the shelves. It seemed the only free space on the shelf was directly beside a small yellow

bowl filled with a mysterious green fungus. Astrid thought it was mold at first. Then she realized that mold shouldn't sparkle.

Mold probably shouldn't look like it was breathing, either.

"Walter," she called out, unable to take her eyes off the shiny, quaking mold. "Is this the stuff Peter threw out earlier?"

She heard Walter muttering something about copper pipes. Aloud, he assured her that the thing in the fridge was in fact a different sample of "the exquisite creature Peter had so foolishly flushed away".

"Is it a cross-contamination risk?" she cut into Walter's enthusiastic description of the mold's charms. He told her no, and that was good enough for her. Astrid popped the sandwich into the empty space, then shut the refrigerator.

She then had to duck, lest she be knocked over by the refrigerator door swinging back open.

***

"Let me get this straight," said Peter some time later. "This thing I flushed down the pipes bred-"

"Mutated would be more correct, son," offered Walter helpfully. Peter ignored the interruption.

"-and Walter collected a sample. Somehow."

Walter nodded. The crease between Peter's' brow deepened when upset or annoyed, Astrid noticed again. "Which proceeded to take over the fridge."

"And most likely would have taken over my lab as well, had it not been for the timely intervention of Agent Farnsworth," Walter added. "She thought of the anti-fungal properties found in shoe inserts." He smiled at Astrid, who couldn't help but smile back. Despite the mess - or perhaps because of it - Walter was in one of his better moods. That suited her - she liked to see him happy.

Peter shook his head. "I don't know. It's a little too X-Files for me."

Astrid laughed, but Walter only looked confused. Astrid realized that he had no idea what they were talking about. Being locked up in a mental hospital for seventeen years didn't leave someone a lot of time to keep up with pop culture. As easily as she could see the confusion, she

could also see the pride. He wouldn't ask, so she decided she'd tell him. To her surprise, Peter beat her to it.

"It was a TV show," he explained to his father. "Think what we do, only much, much less

weird."

"And less gross," Astrid felt the need to add as she pulled a piece of mold out of her hair.

Walter looked intrigued.

***

The mutant mold scrubbed away, the rest of the day was a normal one by Fringe Division's standards. Time passed quickly for Astrid. Before she knew it, she was shutting down her computer and gathering up her things to leave.

"Astrid my dear," said Walter from behind her. Shrugging into her jacket at the same time, Astrid managed to turn around and look at him.

"Yeah, Walter?" she said.

He looked uncertain, as if he were struggling to think of what words came next. That slightly lost look always pulled at her heart. Whatever else he was and whatever else he'd done, she still wasn't sure if it was enough to justify the mental jigsaw puzzle he'd become. Astrid wouldn't wish that on her worst enemy. She smiled at him encouragingly. She thought she saw sadness and then

shame flee across his face, but she couldn't be sure. His emotions - like the rest of him - came and went so quickly.

"I require DVDs," he began.

"He wants to watch _The X-Files_," Peter interpreted in passing. "Correction. He

wants to watch a lot of _The X-Files_."

"Yes of course I do," said Walter. "A marathon, they call it. Won't you join us?"

She was due at Elise's soon. But an X-Files marathon sounded appealing. Astrid craned her neck to look at the clock on the wall. She couldn't watch even one episode without running the risk of being late. She would have gone along if she didn't already have other plans, and said so.

"Maybe next time," she added.

Peter gave her a searching look. Astrid smiled at him. He held her gaze for a moment longer, then nodded. Walter didn't protest her decision. He was too busy verbally mapping the best route to the video store.

Peter turned away from her. "Walter," he said. "The Bloom Street store is two miles out

of our way."

"Not if..."

The sound of their discussion muted as the door closed behind them, then faded down the hallway.

A finished her work and shut down the lab. She stopped at the door, looking around at the lab at rest. She found that she preferred it at its most chaotic. Empty, it was slightly...unsettling. She hit the light and shut the door behind herself

***

Elise lived in one of the more outward suburbs of Boston. Given distance and traffic, night was falling as Astrid pulled into her best friend's driveway. She put the car in park and killed the engine. She sat in silence for a moment, shaking off the last of the double vision that accompanied her line of

work. In the twilight, it all looked so normal: a house, two cars, and a garage. Yet thanks to the things she'd seen, she was becoming more and more aware of what was and what might be lurking beneath the deceptive surface of normalcy. Monsters...

She snapped herself out of her thoughts. Dinner was waiting. Astrid gathered her things and got out of the car. A screen door banged shut at the same time as her car door shut.

"Aunt Astrid!"

There were little monsters, but at least they were cute and relatively harmless. Anna lingered on the porch, too cool at age eleven to come running out to greet Astrid. At six years old, her godson had no problems doing just that. He hit her like a brick wall. Astrid half caught him in her arms,

wrapping herself around him to keep them both from falling down. Together, they walked down the driveway.

By the time they reached the porch, Elise had joined her daughter on the steps. "Dinner's almost ready," she said. "And don't you even think of offering to help me in the kitchen." Her friendly smile took the sting out of the words. Astrid took comfort in the familiarity of a long standing joke between friends.

She spent the half hour before dinner playing trucks with her godson. Dinner itself was a fast, hectic affair in Astrid's opinion. She was used to her little kitchen table and her silent meals for one. After dinner she helped her niece with her math homework, got wrangled into plopping her nephew into the bathtub, and read two books at bedtime.

"I don't know how you do it," she told Elise. Her husband had kissed Elise goodnight and went to bed. It was just the two of them now, curled up on the couch in their pajamas. In keeping with tradition, Astrid made the first pot of coffee strong enough to get up and walk away on its own.

Elise took a sip of her coffee. She made a face as she swallowed it. "Yep." she drew. "Still tastes like crap." She set her coffee cup down on the table.

"So," she asked, "how was work?"

Astrid considered her answer. If she talked about work with her friends and family, she usually presented them with an edited version of her daily routine. She gave them the bare facts of what she did as they appeared in her contract. Linguistics. Computers. Too much paperwork for one human being. She tried to keep the weirder stuff out of her narrative. At first she self-edited because she knew that no one would believe her. Over a year ago, she wouldn't have believed it if someone told her about "fringe science". Lately, she'd started to think that it was more because someone might believe her and she didn't want to upset them.

"Interesting as always," was what she came up with.

Although Elise teased her about her non-answer, she let the subject drop. The conversation turned to other, easier topics.

***

On the way home, her phone rang. The caller ID showed Peter's number. Astrid switched to the hands-free headset and took the call.

"Apparently, Walter has "thing" for small redheads," Petter said, sounding tired. Astrid laughed, looking at the clock on the dashboard. If they'd been watching _The X-Files_ since arriving home, they'd been watching it for quite some time.

"Good to know," she said, wondering where that particular revelation was leading. Then he switched topics on her.

"Seriously," he said, " about that song we were humming this morning..."

Astrid decided that it was entirely too late to be talking about either musical earworms or real worms.

"Can it wait?" she interrupted his flow of words. He told her that he assumed that the news could hold until morning. "Good. I'm tired. See you tomorrow."

Astrid disconnected the call before Peter could say anything else. She turned the radio up and sang along with whatever was on. She was headed home for the night. And right now, her bed and her favorite pair of pajamas were all a woman could ask for at the end of a Friday.


End file.
